Trying to Understand Business.com

[Jon_King]

Sometime recently, the Business.com Directory model has changed and I'm trying to get a handle on it. It used to serve directory listings by default and the traffic was ok enough to pay for the listing.

It has however changed and I don't believe I was informed, what listings are being displayed? The on site explanation of content areas appears inaccurate.

I have several sites in the featured listings, PPC that is, and pay for the # one spot but don't rank first. I tried increasing the bid to a very high level and still was close to the bottom of the results even though my account stats say I rank #1. They still say I rank #1 for my keywords but the results are otherwise.

This whole thing has changed over there, perhaps someone here or from the directory can comment and explain how to use the directory advertising for my clients.

[Event_King]

They could be lying about where you are listed. If you paid for a listing at No 1 position, then that's what you should have. If that's not the case, they are clearly charging you and not delivering, thus saving what was your No 1 spot, for another client.

That's what it sounds like. They might have removed you from your position temporarily, without informing you - might be another possibility ofcourse.......

[martinibuster]

The featured listings, as I understand it, are in the directory categories. This is not a part of searching on business.com. You're paying to be on the top of the directory category only.

[Jon_King]

The default when I signed up was the directory search not the web as is now. I am taking Directory search here and Sponsor PPC not Featured Listing but I really do think that terminology changed.

In my admin, where I bid to gain the number one positon, the position tracking clearly says I've been at the top all along. I have not and am not. I'm at 8 out of 9 spots. Not exactly what I am paying for.

Here's some new info... I talked to a rep yesterday and she said that now Google ads take precidence over their own ads. If a G ad will bring them a higher return mine are pushed down.

They should have mentined that don't you think.

Jeeze I thought that company was actually going to have a fine B2B directory a year or two ago. Guess I was wrong.

[Event_King]

Business.com are like any other website on the net. If listings aren't producing cash or advertisers aren't spending then they are stumped. If they can get big cash from somewhere in order to survive, then they are going to do that, and obviously a major cash supplier (Google) are going to want something brilliant in return for their service.

It's about money, Never forget that. I find it surprising so many on here are shocked at these 'moves' against advertisers. Come on, what do you think business.com are going to do. Put another way, if Google offered you 100'000 in cash to add their results on your engine or whatever, would you turn it down?

[TheGuyAboveYou]

Doesn't Business.com just scrape traffic from Google
anyway? Type in their titles on different categories and
they rank on all of them. I think they also pay lots of money
on PPC engines and scrape keywords too.

So they get paid by Google for their listing even though
their traffic comes from Google in the first place.

Does anyone really go to Business.com and look for information? I doubt it. I could be wrong.

[Event_King]

They don't appear to have Google listings on their site. There's no Google brand/link on the ad slots.... I've never used Business.com, as there is Yahoo, MSN or Google. I don't use Teoma or Ask either for the same reason.

Business.com probably do okay. They seem to have lots of 'paid' listings that are filled, but could have filled those paid spots themselves I suppose. It's difficult to really know who you are dealing with on the web - these guys could be anyone from a 25 year old kid to medium sized business team of 100. Who knows.

But they have the domain 'business', and that's their key to the traffic, I suspect anyway. Directory looks ok, and they now have a search engine too - they might be okay in the long run. It really depends on what other search companies are doing, if they screw up in some way, there's always the likes of Business.com, Jayde or Entireweb that might take over.

Who knows for sure.....